Title: Between two worlds: the construction of the Ottoman state
Author: Kafadar, Cemal 1954-
Published: University of California Press,  1995
Subjects: History | Politics | Middle Eastern History | Middle Eastern Studies | Medieval History | Medieval Studies
Publisher's Description: Cemal Kafadar offers a much more subtle and complex interpretation of the early Ottoman period than that provided by other historians. His careful analysis of medieval as well as modern historiography from the perspective of a cultural historian demonstrates how ethnic, tribal, linguistic, religious, and political affiliations were all at play in the struggle for power in Anatolia and the Balkans during the late Middle Ages.This highly original look at the rise of the Ottoman empire - the longest-lived political entity in human history - shows the transformation of a tiny frontier enterprise into a centralized imperial state that saw itself as both leader of the world's Muslims and heir to the Eastern Roman Empire.   [brief]
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Title: The inner quarters: marriage and the lives of Chinese women in the Sung period
Author: Ebrey, Patricia Buckley 1947-
Published: University of California Press,  1993
Subjects: History | Asian History | China | Women's Studies
Publisher's Description: The Sung Dynasty (960-1279) was a paradoxical era for Chinese women. This was a time when footbinding spread, and Confucian scholars began to insist that it was better for a widow to starve than to remarry. Yet there were also improvements in women's status in marriage and property rights. In this thoroughly original work, one of the most respected scholars of premodern China brings to life what it was like to be a woman in Sung times, from having a marriage arranged, serving parents-in-law, rearing children, and coping with concubines, to deciding what to do if widowed.Focusing on marriage, Patricia Buckley Ebrey views family life from the perspective of women. She argues that the ideas, attitudes, and practices that constituted marriage shaped women's lives, providing the context in which they could interpret the opportunities open to them, negotiate their relationships with others, and accommodate or resist those around them.Ebrey questions whether women's situations actually deteriorated in the Sung, linking their experiences to widespread social, political, economic, and cultural changes of this period. She draws from advice books, biographies, government documents, and medical treatises to show that although the family continued to be patrilineal and patriarchal, women found ways to exert their power and authority. No other book explores the history of women in pre-twentieth-century China with such energy and depth.   [brief]
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Title: Weak foundations: the economy of El Salvador in the nineteenth century 
Author: Lindo-Fuentes, Héctor 1952-
Published: University of California Press,  1991
Subjects: History | Latin American Studies | Economics and Business
Publisher's Description: Héctor Lindo-Fuentes provides the first in-depth economic history of El Salvador during the crucial decades of the nineteenth century. Before independence in 1821, the isolated territory that we now call El Salvador was a subdivision of the Captaincy General of Guatemala and had only 250,000 inhabitants. Both indigo production, the source of wealth for the country's tiny elite and its main link to the outside world, and subsistence agriculture, which engaged the majority of the population, involved the use of agricultural techniques that had not changed for two hundred years. By 1900, however, El Salvador's primary export was coffee, a crop that demanded relatively sophisticated agricultural techniques and the support of an elaborate internal finance and marketing network. The coffee planters came to control the state apparatus, writing laws that secured their access to land, imposing taxes that paid for a transportation network designed to service their plantations, building ports to expedite coffee exports, and establishing a banking system to finance the new crop. Weak Foundations shows how the parallel process of state-building and expansion of the coffee industry resulted in the formation of an oligarchy that was to rule El Salvador during the twentieth century. Historians and economists interested in the "routes to underdevelopment" followed by Latin American and other "Third World" countries will find this analysis thorough and provocative.   [brief]
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Title: The Creation of tribalism in Southern Africa 
Author: Vail, Leroy
Published: University of California Press,  1989
Subjects: History | African History | African Studies | Ethnic Studies
Publisher's Description: Despite a quarter century of "nation building," most African states are still driven by ethnic particularism - commonly known as "tribalism." The stubborn persistence of tribal ideologies despite the profound changes associated with modernization has puzzled scholars and African leaders alike. The bloody hostilities between the tribally-oriented Zulu Inkhata movement and supporters of the African National Congress are but the most recent example of tribalism's tenacity. The studies in this volume offer a new historical model for the growth and endurance of such ideologies in southern Africa.   [brief]
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Title: Gasparo Contarini: Venice, Rome, and reform 
Author: Gleason, Elisabeth G
Published: University of California Press,  1993
Subjects: History | Religion | Renaissance History | European History | Christianity
Publisher's Description: Gasparo Contarini (1483-1542) was a major protagonist in the Counter-Reformation of the sixteenth century. A worldly Venetian patrician, he later became an ascetic advocate of Church reform and, as a Catholic cardinal, was sent to the important Colloquy of Regensburg. He failed in his mission to bring about an agreement between Lutherans and Catholics; nevertheless, his life and thought, as well as his friendships with the most vocal proponents of concord, peace, and toleration, make him an impressive and significant historical figure.In the first biography of Contarini since 1885, Elisabeth Gleason greatly broadens our understanding of the man and his times. As a result, scholars and students will come to see Cardinal Gasparo Contarini as a reminder of alternative concepts of authority and liberty in both church and state.   [brief]
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Title: The magic mountains: hill stations and the British raj 
Author: Kennedy, Dane Keith
Published: University of California Press,  1996
Subjects: History | Asian History | European History | South Asia
Publisher's Description: Perched among peaks that loom over heat-shimmering plains, hill stations remain among the most curious monuments to the British colonial presence in India. In this engaging and meticulously researched study, Dane Kennedy explores the development and history of the hill stations of the raj. He shows that these cloud-enshrouded havens were sites of both refuge and surveillance for British expatriates: sanctuaries from the harsh climate as well as an alien culture; artificial environments where colonial rulers could nurture, educate, and reproduce themselves; commanding heights from which orders could be issued with an Olympian authority.Kennedy charts the symbolic and sociopolitical functions of the hill stations over the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, arguing that these highland communities became much more significant to the British colonial government than mere places for rest and play. Particularly after the revolt of 1857, they became headquarters for colonial political and military authorities. In addition, the hill stations provided employment to countless Indians who worked as porters, merchants, government clerks, domestics, and carpenters.The isolation of British authorities at the hill stations reflected the paradoxical character of the British raj itself, Kennedy argues. While attempting to control its subjects, it remained aloof from Indian society. Ironically, as more Indians were drawn to these mountain areas for work, and later for vacation, the carefully guarded boundaries between the British and their subjects eroded. Kennedy argues that after the turn of the century, the hill stations were increasingly incorporated into the landscape of Indian social and cultural life.   [brief]
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Title: The Hellenistic settlements in Europe, the islands, and Asia Minor
Author: Cohen, Getzel M
Published: University of California Press,  1996
Subjects: Classics | History | Ancient History
Publisher's Description: This compendium provides historical narratives, detailed references, citations, and commentaries on all the cities founded or refounded in Europe, The Islands, and Asia Minor during the Hellenistic period. Organized coherently in more than 180 entries, it is one of the most significant reference wor . . . [more]
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Title: Lucrecia's dreams: politics and prophecy in sixteenth-century Spain
Author: Kagan, Richard L 1943-
Published: University of California Press,  1990
Subjects: History | Renaissance History | Women's Studies | Gender Studies
Publisher's Description: Branded by the Spanish Inquisition as an "evil dreamer," a "notorious mother of prophets," the teenager Lucrecia de León had hundreds of bleak but richly imaginative dreams of Spain's future that became the stuff of political controversy and scandal. Based upon surviving transcripts of her dreams and on the voluminous records of her trial before the Inquisition, Lucrecia's Dreams traces the complex personal and political ramifications of Lucrecia's prophetic career. This hitherto unexamined episode in Spanish history sheds new light on the history of women as well as on the history of dream interpretation.Charlatan or clairvoyant, sinner or saint, Lucrecia was transformed by her dreams into a cause celébre , the rebellious counterpart to that other extraordinary woman of Golden Age Spain, St. Theresa of Jesus. Her supporters viewed her as a divinely inspired seer who exposed the personal and political shortcomings of Philip II of Spain. In examining the relation of dreams and prophecy to politics, Richard Kagan pays particular attention to the activities of the streetcorner prophets and female seers who formed the political underworld of sixteenth-century Spain.   [brief]
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Title: Havana USA: Cuban exiles and Cuban Americans in South Florida, 1959-1994
Author: García, Maria Cristina 1960-
Published: University of California Press,  1996
Subjects: History | United States History | Latin American History | Ethnic Studies | Latino Studies
Publisher's Description: In the years since Fidel Castro came to power, the migration of close to one million Cubans to the United States continues to remain one of the most fascinating, unusual, and controversial movements in American history. María Cristina García - a Cuban refugee raised in Miami - has experienced firsthand many of the developments she describes, and has written the most comprehensive and revealing account of the postrevolutionary Cuban migration to date. García deftly navigates the dichotomies and similarities between cultures and among generations. Her exploration of the complicated realm of Cuban American identity sets a new standard in social and cultural history.   [brief]
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Title: Contentious traditions: the debate on Sati in colonial India
Author: Mani, Lata 1956-
Published: University of California Press,  1998
Subjects: History | South Asia | Postcolonial Studies
Publisher's Description: Contentious Traditions analyzes the debate on sati , or widow burning, in colonial India. Though the prohibition of widow burning in 1829 was heralded as a key step forward for women's emancipation in modern India, Lata Mani argues that the women who were burned were marginal to the debate and that the controversy was over definitions of Hindu tradition, the place of ritual in religious worship, the civilizing missions of colonialism and evangelism, and the proper role of the colonial state. Mani radically revises colonialist as well as nationalist historiography on the social reform of women's status in the colonial period and clarifies the complex and contradictory character of missionary writings on India.The history of widow burning is one of paradox. While the chief players in the debate argued over the religious basis of sati and the fine points of scriptural interpretation, the testimonials of women at the funeral pyres consistently addressed the material hardships and societal expectations attached to widowhood. And although historiography has traditionally emphasized the colonial horror of sati , a fascinated ambivalence toward the practice suffused official discussions. The debate normalized the violence of sati and supported the misconception that it was a voluntary act of wifely devotion.Mani brilliantly illustrates how situated feminism and discourse analysis compel a rewriting of history, thus destabilizing the ways we are accustomed to look at women and men, at "tradition," custom, and modernity.   [brief]
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Title: What difference does a husband make?: women and marital status in Nazi and postwar Germany
Author: Heineman, Elizabeth D 1962-
Published: University of California Press,  1999
Subjects: History | German Studies | Women's Studies | Sociology
Publisher's Description: In October 1946, seven million more women than men lived in occupied Germany. In this study of unwed, divorced, widowed, and married women at work and at home across three political regimes, Elizabeth Heineman traces the transitions from early National Socialism through the war and on to the consolidation of democracy in the West and communism in the East.Based on thorough and extensive research in German national and regional archives as well as the archives of the U.S. occupying forces, this pathbreaking book argues that marital status can define women's position and experience as surely as race, gender, sexual orientation, and class. Heineman finds that, while the war made the experience of single women a dramatic one, state activity was equally important. As a result, West German women continued to be defined in large part by their marital status. In contrast, by the time of reunification marital status had become far less significant in the lives of East German women.In one broad, comprehensive sweep, Elizabeth Heineman compares prewar and postwar, East and West, lived experience and public policy. Her sharp analytical insights will enrich our understanding of the history of women in modern Germany and the role of marital status in twentieth-century life worldwide.   [brief]
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Title: Divided loyalties: nationalism and mass politics in Syria at the close of Empire
Author: Gelvin, James L 1951-
Published: University of California Press,  1999
Subjects: History | Middle Eastern Studies | Middle Eastern History | Politics
Publisher's Description: James L. Gelvin brings a new and distinctive perspective to the perennially fascinating topic of nationalism in the Arab Middle East. Unlike previous historians who have focused on the activities and ideas of a small group of elites, Gelvin details the role played by non-elites in nationalist politics during the early part of the twentieth century. Drawing from previously untapped sources, he documents the appearance of a new form of political organization - the popular committee - that sprang up in cities and villages throughout greater Syria in the immediate aftermath of the First World War. These committees empowered a new type of nationalist leadership, made nationalist politics a mass phenomenon for the first time, and articulated a view of nation and nationalism that continues to inform the politics of the region today.Gelvin does more than recount an episode in the history of nationalism in the Arab Middle East. His examination of leaflets, graffiti, speeches, rumors, and editorials offers fresh insights into the symbolic construction of national communities. His analysis of ceremonies - national celebrations, demonstrations, theater - contributes to our understanding of the emergence of mass politics. By situating his study within a broader historical context, Gelvin has written a book that will be of interest to all who wish to understand nationalism in the region and beyond.   [brief]
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Title: Into one's own: from youth to adulthood in the United States, 1920-1975 
Author: Modell, John
Published: University of California Press,  1989
Subjects: History | United States History | Aging
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Title: Provincial passages: culture, space, and the origins of Chinese communism
Author: Yeh, Wen-hsin
Published: University of California Press,  1996
Subjects: Asian Studies | Asian History | China | History
Publisher's Description: Revealing information that has been suppressed in the Chinese Communist Party's official history, Wen-hsin Yeh presents an insightful new view of the Party's origins. She moves away from an emphasis on Mao and traces Chinese Communism's roots to the country's culturally conservative agrarian heartland. And for the first time, her book shows the transformation of May Fourth radical youth into pioneering Communist intellectuals from a social and cultural history perspective.Yeh's study provides a unique description of the spatial dimensions of China's transition into modernity and vividly evokes the changing landscapes, historical circumstances, and personalities involved. The human dimension of this transformation is captured through the biography of Shi Cuntong (1899-1970), a student from the Neo-Confucian county of Jinhua who became a founding member of the Party. Yeh's in-depth analysis of the dynamics of change is combined with a compelling narrative of the moral dilemmas in the lives of Shi Cuntong and other early leaders. Using sources previously closed to scholars, including recently discovered documents in the archives of the First United Front, Yeh shows the urban Communist movement as an intellectual revolution in social consciousness.The Maoist legacy has often been associated with the excesses of the Cultural Revolution. Yeh's historical reconstruction of a pre-Mao, non-organizational dimension of Chinese socialism is thus of vital interest to those seeking to redefine the place of the Communist Party in a post-Mao political order.   [brief]
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Title: Engendering the Chinese revolution: radical women, communist politics, and mass movements in the 1920s
Author: Gilmartin, Christina K
Published: University of California Press,  1995
Subjects: History | Asian History | China | Women's Studies
Publisher's Description: Christina Kelley Gilmartin rewrites the history of gender politics in the 1920s with this compelling assessment of the impact of feminist ideals on the Chinese Communist Party during its formative years. For the first time, Gilmartin reveals the extent to which revolutionaries in the 1920s were committed to women's emancipation and the radical political efforts that were made to overcome women's subordination and to transform gender relations.Women activists whose experiences and achievements have been previously ignored are brought to life in this study, which illustrates how the Party functioned not only as a political organization but as a subculture for women as well. We learn about the intersection of the personal and political lives of male communists and how this affected their beliefs about women's emancipation. Gilmartin depicts with thorough and incisive scholarship how the Party formulated an ideological challenge to traditional gender relations while it also preserved aspects of those relationships in its organization.   [brief]
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Title: The French worker: autobiographies from the early industrial era
Author: Traugott, Mark
Published: University of California Press,  1993
Subjects: History | Sociology | European History | Gender Studies | French Studies
Publisher's Description: This anthology, drawn from the autobiographies of seven men and women whose lives span the nineteenth century, provides a rare glimpse of the everyday lives of workers in the age of early industrialization in France. Appearing for the first time in English, these stories vividly convey the ambitions, hardships, and reversals of ordinary people struggling to gain a measure of respectability.The workers' livelihoods are diverse: chair-maker, embroiderer, joiner, mason, silk weaver, machinist, seamstress. Their stories of daily activities, work life, and popular politics are filled with lively, often poignant moments. We learn of dismal, unsanitary housing; of disease; workplace accidents; and terrible hardship, especially for the children of the poor. We read of exploitation and injustice, of courtship and marriage, and of the sociability of the wine-merchant's shop and the boardinghouse.Traugott's analytic introduction discusses the many shifts in French society during the nineteenth century. Used in combination with other sources, these autobiographies illuminate the relationship between changes in working conditions and in the forms of political participation and protest occurring as the century came to a close.   [brief]
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Title: Two churches: England and Italy in the thirteenth century
Author: Brentano, Robert 1926-
Published: University of California Press,  1988
Subjects: History | European History | Medieval History | Medieval Studies | Religion
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Title: The power of position: Beijing University, intellectuals, and Chinese political culture, 1898-1929
Author: Weston, Timothy B 1964-
Published: University of California Press,  2004
Subjects: History | Asian Studies | China
Publisher's Description: Throughout the twentieth century, Beijing University (or Beida) has been at the center of China's greatest political and cultural upheavals - from the May Fourth Movement of 1919 to the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s to the tragic events in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Why this should be - how Beida's historical importance has come to transcend that of a mere institution of higher learning--is a question at the heart of this book. A study of intellectuals and political culture during the past century's tumultuous early decades, The Power of Position is the first to focus on Beida, China's oldest and best-known national university. Timothy B. Weston portrays the university as a key locus used by intellectuals to increase their influence in society. Weston analyzes the links between intellectuals' political and cultural commitments and their specific manner of living. He also compares Beijing's intellectual culture with that of the rising metropolis of Shanghai. What emerges is a remarkably nuanced and complex picture of life at China's leading university, especially in the decades leading up to the May Fourth Movement.   [brief]
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Title: Cultural encounters: the impact of the Inquisition in Spain and the New World 
Author: Perry, Mary Elizabeth 1937-
Published: University of California Press,  1991
Subjects: History | Anthropology | European History | Religion | Renaissance History
Publisher's Description: More than just an expression of religious authority or an instrument of social control, the Inquisition was an arena where cultures met and clashed on both shores of the Atlantic. This pioneering volume examines how cultural identities were maintained despite oppression.Persecuted groups were able to survive the Inquisition by means of diverse strategies - whether Christianized Jews in Spain preserving their experiences in literature, or native American folk healers practicing medical care. These investigations of social resistance and cultural persistence will reinforce the cultural significance of the Inquisition.   [brief]
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Title: Annihilating difference: the anthropology of genocide
Author: Hinton, Alexander Laban
Published: University of California Press,  2002
Subjects: Anthropology | African Studies | Asian Studies | Ethnic Studies | Gender Studies | History | Sociology | Media Studies | Religion | Religion
Publisher's Description: Genocide is one of the most pressing issues that confronts us today. Its death toll is staggering: over one hundred million dead. Because of their intimate experience in the communities where genocide takes place, anthropologists are uniquely positioned to explain how and why this mass annihilation occurs and the types of devastation genocide causes. This ground breaking book, the first collection of original essays on genocide to be published in anthropology, explores a wide range of cases, including Nazi Germany, Cambodia, Guatemala, Rwanda, and Bosnia.   [brief]
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